And then forget all that. Because while Lisa Kron’s “In the Wake” is deeply steeped in those events and the subsequent course of the country, the play — which is about to have its local premiere at San Diego Repertory Theatre — is not really about that election or the Bush Era.

Instead, it chronicles the gradual, at times agonizing, enlightenment of a somewhat self-satisfied New Yorker whose assumptions are tested in the wake of the election, the 9/11 attacks, war, Hurricane Katrina and other traumas of the time.

“I have never really thought of it as a specific history of that period,” Kron (pronounced “krone”) says of the work, which premiered off-Broadway in 2010. Instead, she says, “In the Wake” was aimed at “something universal in the American character that expressed itself in different ways on the right and left (during that period), but was essentially the same thing: A belief in the possibility of infinite expansion. And also a faith that things might go wrong, but that they will right themselves.”

The play’s main character, Ellen, is an outspoken (not to mention constantly speaking) liberal who rails against government actions on everything from deregulation to foreign policy. At the same time, her private life begins to echo the kind of heedless disregard for consequences that she accuses her country of committing.

For Kron, writing “In the Wake” wasn’t some kind of political exorcism — she was and remains a progressive herself. It was more a matter of confronting the blind spots that can afflict even the best-intentioned of people.

“I enjoy pointing the finger as much as anyone,” Kron says with a laugh. “But rather than listing the sins of the Bush administration — which were many — I was more interested in what we on the left, who were trying so hard to be conscious, were also incapable of seeing.”

Only human

Kron, an Obie Award-winning playwright best known for such autobiographical works as the Broadway show “Well” and the solo piece “2.5 Minute Ride” (which premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 1996), says the kind of myopia that afflicts Ellen goes beyond politics.

“It’s just human nature,” she says, and throws in a self-deprecating example: “I was reading a big article on the human cost of making an iPhone. And I said, ‘That’s terrible.’ While I was reading it on my (Apple) MacBook.

“I do believe that every time somebody sets out to do something they haven’t done before, something big and visionary, there will be unexpected costs. And I think often they are costs we turn a blind eye to.”

Moxie Theatre artistic director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, a Rep favorite who has returned to stage “In the Wake,” says those ideas resonated with her when she read the script.

“What really grabbed me about it were the questions she was asking about the assumptions we make as Americans — assumptions about ourselves and our place in the world,” Sonnenberg says.

“I could see myself in a lot of the characters — not just one, but a lot of them. That was really compelling.”

As Ellen, Sonnenberg has cast Aubrey Saverino, a New York-based actor and 2010 graduate of the Old Globe/University of San Diego MFA acting program, who also had a prime role in the Rep’s “In the Next Room or the vibrator play” last year.

“I remember when I opened it up to the first page of the play, I thought, wow, this is going to be a liberal attack on conservative values,” says Saverino. “I share the same values as Ellen in a lot of ways. I thought it’d be preaching to the choir, (that) this isn’t going to be challenging my beliefs.

“But by the time I got to the end of the play, it was a punch to the gut. (Because) I had a lot of those same illusions.”

Saverino says she also felt a connection with Ellen’s “insatiable curiosity — this need to push back boundaries and see everything life has to offer.” The character’s journey, she adds, is “to figure out when that’s brave and when it’s (just) being selfish and destructive.”

Sonnenberg, who notes the production will include video footage of news events from the time, says she is treating “In the Wake” as something of “a period piece — just trying to reconnect with how crazy it was that we didn’t have a president for a long time.

“And then the way it got decided. And how 9/11 was a moment of unity, and then how the Iraq War was divisive again.”

Those events form the backdrop to a play that Kron believes is more about exploring uncomfortable truths than about making some kind of statement.

“Good plays are written, I think, not out of answers but out of questions.”